Swiss role in helping to get correct downswing

The downswing starts from the ground up, that statement is hardly going to raise any eyebrows, yet so many players insist on starting theirs from the shoulders down.

I refer to this as top heavy as it leads to the shoulders dominating the downswing motion. This is probably the most common fault in the entire game, causing loss of contact, loss of power, and loss of direction.

Picture 2

My guest this week Ian Mckerron is doing a simple drill, to help create the correct sequence of his downswing movement.

Take a look at the first picture, Ian has placed our Swiss ball between his left hip and the academy wall.

With no club being used, he has taken his hands back to roughly shoulder height.

Now he will simply allow his left hip to bump into the large ball. This produces a slight lateral movement, which ensures that his upper body will follow, rather than lead his downswing movement.

This is literally allowing him to feel as if his downswing truly starts from the ground up.When this drill is correctly done, the ball will stay in place as it is compressed into the wall.

Now have a glance at the second picture. This time Ian has wrongly allowed his shoulders to turn far too early – note how open they are at this point of the swing, causing the ball to roll along the wall and almost fall off his left hip.

Note the gap appearing between the ball/line (tee) on the large graphic. Yet no such gap appears in the first picture.

Remember that the hips have three roles to play in the correct downswing motion – a lateral one, followed by a rotational one, followed by a final standing up one.

All slicers of the ball tend to miss out the lateral one, go straight into the rotational one and often fall back at the end of the swing.

So if this sounds like I am describing your game, find a swiss ball, place it against a wall and try out this very good simple drill.